Thursday, December 15, 2011

Tutorial: "Cupcake" Christmas Card

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably left sending out
Christmas cards to the last minute. It’s
the same every year, Christmas sneaks up on me and by the time I start thinking
about it, there is only a week or so left.
So last night I sat down in my little studio
and whipped up some Christmas cupcakes.
Not the delectable edible kind, rather the twinkly visual kind. LuminArte have released some gorgeous new holiday colors in their Twinkling H2O range, so I thought I’d try
them out.

These 12 new colors are deep, rich
and highly glamorous. Vavoom Red, Sugar Plum, Raspberry Wine, Twilight, Mystique, Harvest Sol, Desert Clay, Spanish Moss, Moon Beams, Emerald, Ice, and Golden
Nugget. These are shimmer on steroids and they are perfect for so many holiday projects.

I thought I share a little of my process. Here’s how I did it: Start with a quick pencil sketch of a cupcake.

Sweep a light wet wash of “Spanish Moss” over the cupcake pan. Let the pigment and mica play over the paper
and encourage it with your brush to settle into what will become the ridges of
the pan.

Next, using “Emerald” gently fill in the holly
leaves applying the same technique. Use
a little more water if necessary and watch as the mica moves around. Again, as it’s drying, just encourage the
shimmer to settle into the areas that will be ridged or shaded. Use a paper towel to dab out the excess from
the areas that will reflect some light. I used “Hot Cinnamon” for the berries,
with a flash of “Vavoom Red” for dimension. The berries are so small that it’s important
NOT to over work them. One layer of “Hot
Cinnamon” for color and one or two light brush strokes of “Vavoom Red” for dimension.

Next, fill your brush with a very wet, but light coating of “Harvest
Sol” and run it around the edges of the frosting. “Harvest Sol” has a beautiful
strong pigment and you only need a small amount of paint. Only cover the edges
at this stage as you’re trying to bring out the shading. Let it dry before the next coat. Fill a clean brush with a generous coating of “Ice”
and wash it all over the frosting. “Ice”
is colorless, but you’ll definitely see the shimmer take form as you lay it
down.

Using another coating of “Harvest Sol” bring out more of the shaded
edges by blending it very softly into the ice.
You’ll be able to see that as the mica builds up around the edges of the
frosting, the light plays in a way that it begins to look three-dimensional.
That’s the beauty of Twinkling H2O’s.

Now you have your primary layer on your
cupcake, from here on, it's all about subtlety. This is where it
is important to use less water on your brush and more paint, but remember a light
hand will give the best results, and keep a paper towel close by for dabbing.

Start with “Emerald” and put in darker lines over the case for
ridges. Just work the paint in a way
that it ‘looks’ right to you. Follow any
contours of the cupcake and keep the lines parallel and consistent, but not too
perfect. Lightly wash a little more of the “Emerald” around the edges of the case
adding shadow and form. Dab away the areas that reflect light, giving it the impression
of a round case and let it dry between layers.

Apply the same layering principle over the rest of the
picture. Adding a little more paint in
areas that are darker or shaded and dabbing away at the lighter areas. If you
want to lift away some of the darker paint, just use a wet clean brush, run the
water over those areas and dab away with your towel. The Twinkling H2O’s are remarkably easy to
lift in this way.

When you’re happy with the result, let it dry, then pick up
a fine black marker or pen and use it to define the cupcake. Keep the lines small, clean and
unobtrusive. This stage is just for definition;
don’t let the black lines overtake the entire picture, but instead use them to
help bring out the edges of the cupcake.

As a final step, I mixed “China Black” and “Siam White” to
make a creamy matte gray. These two
colors are the only non-mica colors in the Twinkling H2O range. I use them a
lot, especially for background shading.
The matte of these two work in perfect harmony behind a shimmering subject
to make the piece “POP” from the page.

Be
very careful when using them though, the pigments in these two colors are very
rich and even though you can mix them with the mica-based colors, they can
easily and quickly over power the mica if you use too much. Lightly wash the gray behind the cupcake, starting your stroke against the edge of the cupcake, pull the color out with you brush and lots of water, dabbing away at the edges to keep it smooth.

As a final tip, scan or copy the finished cupcake and print
it out onto card stock. Then, using just
the main colors, lightly brush a layer of Twinkling H2O onto the copied version
of your cupcake.

Cut around the edges and stick it onto a blank greeting card. This makes it easy to
produce many shimmering glittering copies of the original, and perfect for bulk
Christmas Cards for all your family and friends.

And, as a little Christmas gift to you, here is a scanned copy of my finished Christmas cupcake. Please feel free to download it, print it onto card stock and then brush over
it with your own Twinkling H2O’s. It’ll
make a fun Christmas card, or gift tags.

I love this! Your post also answered a question I asked on my blog yesterday. I'm new to these Twinkling H20's, and I apparently have five that I bought several years ago. I did not use them until recently. They say LuminArte on the bottom and I wondered if it they were the product called Twinkling H20's. Now I know and I love the stuff! I need to buy more and keep reading your very helpful blog.Thanks for sharing. D~~~~

Rhonda, thanks for your comment, for this I used the Koh-I-Noor Rapido Sketch in a 3x0/.25 I also use the Pigma Micron quite a lot...or a dip pen and India ink, depending on how fine I need the marks. xx

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